Tampa Bay Times Book Critic Signs Off

Every story comes to an end.

My 27 years at the Tampa Bay Times end this month. I had been contemplating retirement for a while, so when the Times recently announced staff buyouts I took the option.

I’ve worked for the Times since 1997 in a variety of roles: copy editor, features reporter, food and travel writer, reviewer of movies, TV, theater and more. In 2007, I became the newspaper’s book editor, covering books full time.

As an English major, former college literature teacher and longtime book reviewer, I was delighted with the assignment. Not only would I get paid to do something I love, reading and writing about books, but I would have the opportunity to meet and interview some of the people who wrote them.

I soon discovered how rich the state was in excellent fiction writers of every variety. I’ve met and interviewed Florida-based writers like crime fiction icons Michael Connelly and Dennis Lehane, and masters of weird, wild Florida fiction Dave Barry, Carl Hiaasen and the dearly departed Tim Dorsey.

A few months ago, I interviewed thriller writer Randy Wayne White about what it’s like to survive three direct-hit hurricanes and, of course, write about it.

My most intense whiplash experience came in 2008, when I went to Gainesville and spent a day interviewing Lauren Groff near the beginning of her career, then spent the next day talking to Harry Crews near the end of his. It’s hard to imagine two more different writers — they do share a fierce kind of intelligence — but both have written about Florida in unforgettable ways.

I’ve also gotten to know some of the fearless nonfiction writers who have taken on Florida’s bright and dark history as their subject, such as Raymond Arsenault, Jack Davis, Gilbert King, Gary Mormino and Craig Pittman.

I’ve met so many other talented writers who live in the Tampa Bay area, and my acquaintances with them made it possible to compile and edit a short story collection, “Tampa Bay Noir,” published by Akashic Books in 2020. I wrote a story for the collection, too, called “The Bite.” To my astonishment, it won the Mystery Writers of America’s Robert L. Fish Memorial Award for the best first published short story. (A strange prize to win after more than three decades of writing for newspapers, but I’ll take it.)

I reviewed a wide range of books on subjects other than Florida, too. I wrote front-page tributes after the deaths of Toni Morrison and John Updike, and for several years the Harry Potter phenomenon was almost a full-time job.

As book critic I’ve read, on average, three books per week, about 150 per year, which adds up to about 2,500 books over 17 years. My home decorating theme is bookshelves, accented by piles of books.

Many of those books were good, some were a waste of trees, and a precious handful were great. I’m glad to have read all of them. Well, almost.

The other part of my job as book editor was leading the annual Tampa Bay Times Festival of Reading, which marked its 31st year last fall with a sellout crowd at The Palladium in St. Petersburg.

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I’m in a good place about wrapping up my own career at the Times, but I’m heartbroken that this year’s festival has been canceled, and its future is unclear.

For 14 of the years that I oversaw the festival, it took place on the University of South Florida St. Petersburg campus, with multiple stages and as many as 65 authors. During the pandemic, we presented a virtual festival for two years, then in 2022 returned with a slimmed-down live event with about 10 authors on a single stage at The Palladium.

The roster of authors changed each year, but there were fan favorites who returned often. When I first met thriller writer Lisa Unger at a festival, she was toting her tiny daughter in a baby carrier. Unger has been a festival author every year since, and that baby just started college.

Unger also came up with one of my favorite festival traditions, a panel we called Books and Bourbon, that featured me moderating her and (depending on the year) crime fiction writers Ace Atkins, Michael Koryta and Lori Roy, all of whom have local connections and amazing talent. It was mostly books and just a little bourbon, but a lot of fun.

Barry, Connelly, Hiaasen and Lehane all repeatedly drew enthusiastic, standing-room-only festival crowds, as did children’s author R.L. Stine, writing maven Roy Peter Clark, former Times columnist Jeff Klinkenberg and former Florida poet laureate Peter Meinke.

During the virtual years, fans logged in to watch interviews with James Lee Burke, Louise Erdrich, John Grisham, Honorée Fanonne Jeffers, Barbara Kingsolver, Maggie O’Farrell, Colson Whitehead and more.

The festival has always been an enormous amount of fun for me, and an enormous amount of work. For the fall festival, I would begin recruiting authors in January, and as the date approached I’d read all of the festival books and review them, schedule the authors and wrangle a million more details.

Things occasionally went wrong. One year an author forgot about the festival and didn’t show up; it turned out he went fishing. Another year a limo driver almost delivered Judy Blume to the USF Tampa campus — but, thank goodness, Blume knew where she was going even if the driver didn’t. (Good thing, since more than 700 fans were waiting for her in the USF St. Pete ballroom.)

But every year my reward was happy authors and happy audiences — rooms full of dozens or hundreds of people excitedly talking about books. It will probably be good for my blood pressure to step down, but I’ll truly miss it.

I’d like to thank Times leadership for supporting the festival through recent tough years for the newspaper industry, especially Conan Gallaty, Mark Katches and Paul Tash.

Many Times staffers over the years have generously contributed their time and hard work. I’m deeply grateful to Ellen Clarke, Dawn Cate, Kirk Simpkins and the Times Marketing Department. Beyond the Times, my gratitude goes out to Lori Gaudreau, Erin Mitchell, Sudsy Tschiderer, Paul Wilborn and the great people of Tombolo Books. I couldn’t have put on these festivals without you.

Believe it or not, I’d also like to thank Florida’s book-banners. Yes, their puritanical crusade is an uninformed and un-American slap in the face to freedom that has divided communities and made the jobs of teachers and librarians even harder — and made Florida an even bigger punchline. But it has also focused attention on the importance of reading and roused the passion of those who love books. And it has boosted book sales — just about every bookstore in the state has a prominent banned-books display.

And, of course, I want to thank my readers. Over the years, my conversations with so many of you at the festival and other book events, on the phone or via email, have opened my mind and enriched my life. You’re my people.

Finally, I’d most like to thank former Times managing editor Mike Wilson, who offered me the book editor job, and my late husband, John Bancroft, who said when he heard about it, “It’s the job you were born for, Dar.”

As usual, he was right.

Now, on to the next chapter.